<p>Two bedroom, one bath home without a built in dishwasher goes fir $100,000 over the asking price or $800,000 in Seattle.
Walking distance to Greenlake is nice, but its not all that. The traffic is bad, the grocery store is a pain to get to, and the crazy quilt streets will drive your friends crazy.</p>
<p>If we moved, we wouldnt stay in Seattle. H is anxious to retire.
Im sure we could find someplace cheaper, especially if we decided to rent for a year or so while we decided where to settle.</p>
<p>My son lives in Greenlake and I am astounded at the real estate costs there as well as rental prices! He visited and finally saw the house I purchased and remodeled last year and told me that it would go for well over a million in his neighborhood! Ack!</p>
<p>IF you are seriously planning to sell, be sure you have a place you can afford to buy where you want to live and can afford lined up so you don"t get priced out of where you want to live. Sadly, some folks have that happen–they sell for what they believe is a good price and then find they want to remain in the area but can’t afford to buy back into the neighborhood.</p>
<p>Stunning price for that house. Has great light but the kitchen and bath need to be renovated. I would have a hard time sinking that kind of $ into it. One has to think of an eventual resale. </p>
<p>My brother has been looking at riverfront properties in Portland because even those are generally cheaper than houses in Seattle. Seattle’s market is just crazy. </p>
<p>Our current home is one that we may retire in. If we decide on something smaller then there is no way we’d be able to buy another house in this neighborhood. Tear-downs sell for over a million.</p>
<p>Real estate in certain areas has gone nuts. With Seattle, I suspect some of it could be internet firms plus general stock market gains that have put money in people’s hands. It also could be international money, NYC prices are going nuts primarily because of foreign money (especially Russian and Chinese well off people, looking to put their money where if purges happen at home, it can’t be taken)…there is an apartment building going up I can see from my office, it is going to be one of the tallest apartment buildings in the world (something like 1400 feet plus), the apartments sell for 45 million…</p>
<p>I haven 't looked where I live (a suburb of NYC), to see what prices are like, I don’t know if it has translated into the broader economy. I do know that when you get past a certain range of ‘desirable’ locations prices tend to plummet, here in NJ there is a kind of real estate mason-dixon line that get beyond it, and prices drop off significantly.</p>
<p>My coworker checked out the price in Oregon before she retired. It was reasonable, she sold her house here in our area, a 2-bedroom house over asking price to a Chinese buyer and paid cash for one. I think 3-bedroom less than $300K. The high end of our city is also going up like crazy, but not the 2-bedroom condo. Some new houses went from $1.6M last year to $2.2M in less than 6 months. Cnbc reported the high end is seeing a surge. I believe it now.</p>
<p>Just stay away from anything near the Pacific or Atlantic. Gulf coast is probably fine. </p>
<p>Where I live 200K is a pretty decent 3-bedroom 2-bathroom slightly older house, or new condo. 500K-600K is a mansion. There’s not a whole lot you can find for 800K at all, nothing’s that expensive. Maybe if you want 30 acres of cleared land or something you see prices like that. </p>
<p>This is one of the major reasons we are moving to central Virginia rather than sty in Seattle. Everything is cheaper and less crowded. We are talking very nice homes in good area for $200K and low taxes ($1500). And when min wage goes over $15/hr even a sandwich will be $10 in Seattle.Many already raising prices just to get people adjusted.Gas is $0.50 more too. Fixed income will be over double in value in Va.</p>
<p>The market is kind of odd. My neighbors have had their house for sale for about a month, and I don’t think I’ve seen one person come by, even for their open houses. There must have been some lookers that I missed. Commuting distance to Seattle, expensive but fantastic view and a really nice house. I don’t think they’re overpriced. My friends who live in the same city, got three offers the first week their house was listed. I think a lot depends upon the price range you’re listing it in, and some ranges are in a very hot market.</p>
<p>Emeraldkity4, I’ve been thinking about your post ever since I first read it and wishing the market around us was even half as hot. Houses here that sold for $800K - $1MM+ pre-crash have since sold at discounts of 30% - 40% (or worse in the case of a couple of foreclosures) and there’s been only a little improvement recently.</p>
<p>Lately, I’ve seen activity pick up for houses priced <$500K and many of those resales are now going for at or slightly above 2006 levels. On the other hand, houses priced >$800K move much slower and those >$1MM are still taking a year or longer and are selling at a discount. </p>
<p>We’re not on the market now but plan to list next year in anticipation of dh’s retirement, figuring it could take quite a while. Our broker knows we’ll consider an offer before then, but I wasn’t expecting his call this week. We have a showing scheduled in a few days and I am in panic mode because the house is not ready. I’ve been cleaning like mad today and wishing I could find someone to do the windows. Dh is swamped at work so he can’t help. He’s also lukewarm about selling sooner rather than later. I’m convinced the pool of potential buyers for this house is very small and we need to be flexible about the timing as well as the price. I may be somewhat influenced by being the one who does the cleaning and handles the maintenance. There’s a brand new 2 bd. /2 ba. apartment much closer to dh’s job where I could be quite happy until we build the next house (which will be a great deal smaller than our current home.)</p>
<p>I love the house in your link, and aside from the wallpaper could live very happily with its mid-century look. The price just staggers.</p>
<p>The nicest houses in our neighborhood were selling in the $800,000s in 2008. A handful have been sold in the $700,000s recently. It’s really variable - people are only willing to pay the big bucks for pristine houses. The minute you get a little further away, the prices fall off quickly. </p>
<p>I like the mid-century look, but that house has some definite weird stuff going on. The kitchen wall paper (easy to fix) and floor (not quite so easy) are just weird. I hate the giant knobs in the hall too.</p>